Living

Albrecht Dürer's Das Frauenbad

Das Frauenbad or The Women's Bathhouse (1496) by the Nuremberg artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is a pen drawing, probably made as a preparatory study for a print that was never executed. The drawing is a highly technical early demonstration of one-point linear perspective, which Dürer would later go on to
outline and explain in Four books on
human proportion. Featuring six women from
different points of view and in different poses, the drawing essentially models a female
body in the round. Its visual insight into the subjects' lives is similarly
nuanced, featuring different ages, stages of life, and - concurrently - health
concerns.

Baths appeared frequently in works by Dürer and his
Nuremberg contemporaries. This is not very surprising, since baths were a feature
of German civic life. The earliest record of baths in Nuremberg dates back to
1288, when Konrad von Kuerenburg granted the privilege
of a bath from the river Pegnitz to the Franciscan monastery. By the sixteenth century, there were approximately
thirteen public baths spread across the city. Although it is not clear which bathhouse is represented here by Dürer, the stove in
the background and the tap close to the seated woman in the foreground make it clear that this was a technologically sophisticated bath, distinguishing it from those natural spas with which many medical writers in the sixteenth century were
preoccupied.

It is evident from this drawing that Dürer
paid close attention to the minutiae of bathing. The bundle of twigs, which
serve as the painting's axis of perspective, were a tool for exfoliation. In the
Galenic nexus that informed the maintenance of health, baths were not simply
about washing, but about carefully managing the process of excretion that skin
enabled. For similar reasons, combing your hair (as we see the long-haired woman in
the centre doing) was an essential act of cleanliness, while protecting your
head against overexposure through the use of of hats and wraps, as worn by the three women at the front of the image, was
equally common. Finally, the younger woman bathing her elder reminds the
viewer that effective cleansing often required interpersonal attention, a facet
of which Nuremberg's civic council were well aware. From 1523, the council paid
barber-surgeons to attend to the cupping and bleeding practices demanded by this whole-scale
attention to skin. The overt sensuality and
intimacy of the drawing, as evidenced by the Peeping Tom in the corner, reminds
the viewer simultaneously of the interplay between tactility, eroticism, and health in which
skin played a crucial role.

Albrecht Dürer's Das Frauenbad

Das Frauenbad or The Women's Bathhouse (1496) by the Nuremberg artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is a pen drawing, probably made as a preparatory study for a print that was never executed. The drawing is a highly technical early demonstration of one-point linear perspective, which Dürer would later go on to
outline and explain in Four books on
human proportion. Featuring six women from
different points of view and in different poses, the drawing essentially models a female
body in the round. Its visual insight into the subjects' lives is similarly
nuanced, featuring different ages, stages of life, and - concurrently - health
concerns.

Baths appeared frequently in works by Dürer and his
Nuremberg contemporaries. This is not very surprising, since baths were a feature
of German civic life. The earliest record of baths in Nuremberg dates back to
1288, when Konrad von Kuerenburg granted the privilege
of a bath from the river Pegnitz to the Franciscan monastery. By the sixteenth century, there were approximately
thirteen public baths spread across the city. Although it is not clear which bathhouse is represented here by Dürer, the stove in
the background and the tap close to the seated woman in the foreground make it clear that this was a technologically sophisticated bath, distinguishing it from those natural spas with which many medical writers in the sixteenth century were
preoccupied.

It is evident from this drawing that Dürer
paid close attention to the minutiae of bathing. The bundle of twigs, which
serve as the painting's axis of perspective, were a tool for exfoliation. In the
Galenic nexus that informed the maintenance of health, baths were not simply
about washing, but about carefully managing the process of excretion that skin
enabled. For similar reasons, combing your hair (as we see the long-haired woman in
the centre doing) was an essential act of cleanliness, while protecting your
head against overexposure through the use of of hats and wraps, as worn by the three women at the front of the image, was
equally common. Finally, the younger woman bathing her elder reminds the
viewer that effective cleansing often required interpersonal attention, a facet
of which Nuremberg's civic council were well aware. From 1523, the council paid
barber-surgeons to attend to the cupping and bleeding practices demanded by this whole-scale
attention to skin. The overt sensuality and
intimacy of the drawing, as evidenced by the Peeping Tom in the corner, reminds
the viewer simultaneously of the interplay between tactility, eroticism, and health in which
skin played a crucial role.

Anna Wecker's Cookbook

A Pleasing New Cookbook: of many kinds of
meals consisting of vegetables, fruit, meat, poultry, game, fish and pastries.
Not only for healthy people, but also and especially for infirm people who suffer
from various sicknesses and weaknesses, and also for pregnant women, women in
childbed and other weak people, artful and useful to be prepared was published
in Amberg in 1598 and written by Anna Wecker (aka Weckerin), as this frontispiece tells us. Anna was the widow of Johann
Jacob Wecker (1528-1586), a municipal physician in Colmar and also author of several important medical treatises.

Anna was not the first woman to write a
cookbook in sixteenth-century Germany. Two other notable examples include the 1545
book by Philippine Welser and the 1553 manuscript by Sabina Welser. In some
respects, it is possible to consider books such as these as a precursor to the genre popular
in seventeenth-century England that included bestsellers such as The Queen's Closet Opened (1655). Scholars
such as Albrecht Classen have argued that these German texts should be studied
for their insight into female creativity and literary imagination. Unlike the
Welsers, but more similar to later female authors, Anna positioned herself strategically relative to influential male physicians, including her late
husband and her son-in-law, the physician Nicholas Taurellus. Not only did she
cite the approval of her husband and the knowledge she gained from her many
years working with him, but she also claimed that he had learnt from her. For he recognised that her skills in the kitchen helped his patients recover 'almost as reliably
as a trip to the apothecary'. She wrote that when he died the physicians in
Nuremberg encouraged her to complete the project. She dedicated the text
to an important patron, the Countess of the Palatinate Louise Juliana.

The significance of Anna's cookbook,
however, lies not just in the clever way in which it parlayed her medical
marriage into a place in the complex medical hierarchy; it also made a
conscious claim to extend domestic knowledge across the sphere of the
preservation of health and the curing of illness. Anna's cookbook was framed as
a text for the healthy and sick alike. As one of the
Galenic non-naturals (along with air, exercise, sleeping pattern, excretions,
and emotions), food played an important part in the maintenance of health. It
was fundamentally tied to skin, through its role in managing the porous body. Although
many physicians' books referred to diet as a key component in the maintenance of
health, they were often rather vague about precisely what you should eat or drink, preferring exhortations to moderate diets or avoiding rich food. In contrast, Anna's
book is more specific, providing great insight into what a health-conscious
mistress of an urban household might encounter on a daily basis. Its contents broke down into four major sections on nuts, fruit and vegetables, meat, and
fish, but recipes for nuts and vegetables frequently advised their use with
meat or fish. Anna's recipes incorporate a wide range of ingredients, including many spices
such as saffron, cinnamon, ginger, or turmeric, and cooking methods,
including roasting, frying, baking, and stewing. The recipes also cover modern food
categories, for example there are a variety of milk-based dishes that could be
made from almonds, rice, or other products.

Anna included many recipes for 'the sick' (besonders gut fur kranhkeiten), while
never specifying a disease. Implicit within such recipes was often a consideration
that they might be easy to digest, with the majority of those recipes designed explicitly for
sick people relying on stewing or resulting in soft textures. In terms of the
preservation of health, Anna set great store by eggs and meat as a source of
energy. She shared a disdain for fish as a source of medical benefit with many
sixteenth-century authorities, including Erasmus, who hated fish so much that
he finagled a lifetime dispensation to eat meat on fast days! Overall,
however, she placed particular emphasis on a woman upholding her individual discernment when using cooking to dispense medical help. She wrote that her recipes
were not simply to be copied, but to be adapted depending on a patient's
nature, age, physical constitution, habits, geographical location, and the
context of their disease. The degree to which Anna expected her female audience
to be aware of and interpret for themselves the cornerstones of the Galenic,
humoral body attests to a high level of medical literacy in early modern
Germany and an expansive idea of the domesticity of health and its management.

Anna Wecker's Cookbook

A Pleasing New Cookbook: of many kinds of
meals consisting of vegetables, fruit, meat, poultry, game, fish and pastries.
Not only for healthy people, but also and especially for infirm people who suffer
from various sicknesses and weaknesses, and also for pregnant women, women in
childbed and other weak people, artful and useful to be prepared was published
in Amberg in 1598 and written by Anna Wecker (aka Weckerin), as this frontispiece tells us. Anna was the widow of Johann
Jacob Wecker (1528-1586), a municipal physician in Colmar and also author of several important medical treatises.

Anna was not the first woman to write a
cookbook in sixteenth-century Germany. Two other notable examples include the 1545
book by Philippine Welser and the 1553 manuscript by Sabina Welser. In some
respects, it is possible to consider books such as these as a precursor to the genre popular
in seventeenth-century England that included bestsellers such as The Queen's Closet Opened (1655). Scholars
such as Albrecht Classen have argued that these German texts should be studied
for their insight into female creativity and literary imagination. Unlike the
Welsers, but more similar to later female authors, Anna positioned herself strategically relative to influential male physicians, including her late
husband and her son-in-law, the physician Nicholas Taurellus. Not only did she
cite the approval of her husband and the knowledge she gained from her many
years working with him, but she also claimed that he had learnt from her. For he recognised that her skills in the kitchen helped his patients recover 'almost as reliably
as a trip to the apothecary'. She wrote that when he died the physicians in
Nuremberg encouraged her to complete the project. She dedicated the text
to an important patron, the Countess of the Palatinate Louise Juliana.

The significance of Anna's cookbook,
however, lies not just in the clever way in which it parlayed her medical
marriage into a place in the complex medical hierarchy; it also made a
conscious claim to extend domestic knowledge across the sphere of the
preservation of health and the curing of illness. Anna's cookbook was framed as
a text for the healthy and sick alike. As one of the
Galenic non-naturals (along with air, exercise, sleeping pattern, excretions,
and emotions), food played an important part in the maintenance of health. It
was fundamentally tied to skin, through its role in managing the porous body. Although
many physicians' books referred to diet as a key component in the maintenance of
health, they were often rather vague about precisely what you should eat or drink, preferring exhortations to moderate diets or avoiding rich food. In contrast, Anna's
book is more specific, providing great insight into what a health-conscious
mistress of an urban household might encounter on a daily basis. Its contents broke down into four major sections on nuts, fruit and vegetables, meat, and
fish, but recipes for nuts and vegetables frequently advised their use with
meat or fish. Anna's recipes incorporate a wide range of ingredients, including many spices
such as saffron, cinnamon, ginger, or turmeric, and cooking methods,
including roasting, frying, baking, and stewing. The recipes also cover modern food
categories, for example there are a variety of milk-based dishes that could be
made from almonds, rice, or other products.

Anna included many recipes for 'the sick' (besonders gut fur kranhkeiten), while
never specifying a disease. Implicit within such recipes was often a consideration
that they might be easy to digest, with the majority of those recipes designed explicitly for
sick people relying on stewing or resulting in soft textures. In terms of the
preservation of health, Anna set great store by eggs and meat as a source of
energy. She shared a disdain for fish as a source of medical benefit with many
sixteenth-century authorities, including Erasmus, who hated fish so much that
he finagled a lifetime dispensation to eat meat on fast days! Overall,
however, she placed particular emphasis on a woman upholding her individual discernment when using cooking to dispense medical help. She wrote that her recipes
were not simply to be copied, but to be adapted depending on a patient's
nature, age, physical constitution, habits, geographical location, and the
context of their disease. The degree to which Anna expected her female audience
to be aware of and interpret for themselves the cornerstones of the Galenic,
humoral body attests to a high level of medical literacy in early modern
Germany and an expansive idea of the domesticity of health and its management.

Acupuncture

As with the practice of cupping, in early modern Europe knowledge of the techniques and overarching purpose of acupuncture was
long-standing but inexact. Through increased trade and missionary
activity, communication with China and Japan was opened up, facilitating contact between Jesuits, Dutch traders, and Chinese and Japanese experts and thus allowing for fresh awareness of the
techniques of acupuncture.

Acupuncture needles are found in a number of medical and scientific collections from the Enlightenment period. Within the collection of the Irish
physician and antiquarian Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), whose bequest to the nation of over 71,000 objects became the founding collection of the British Museum, are a set of three silver acupuncture needles contained within a lacquered wood box originally owned by the
Jesuit Engelbert Kaempfer (see British Museum, As,SLMisc.1077).

The first woodcut engraving is taken from Kaempfer's account of the art of acupuncture, contained in his 1712 treatise, Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V. The illustration depicts a relatively accurate representation of acupuncture needles and their case. Yet at the same time, the depiction of a languid female nude with an open kimono alludes to an exotic, highly gendered and erotic, proto-orientalist context for their use. As Kaempfer's image suggests, whether such items were exotic curiosities or surgical items of study depended largely on how a person determined their use. On the whole, accounts of Far Eastern acupuncture, relayed by missionaries or physicians alike, sought to align acupuncture within traditional Western medical categories. Needles like Sloane's sat on the boundary between exotica (or curiosities) and an increasingly globalised, empirical medical knowledge.

The first printed treatise to mention the practice of acupuncture was De Medicina Indorum by Jacobus Bontius (1592-1631), which appeared after his death in 1642 (see image). Bontius praised acupuncture, which he called the art of the 'stylus argenteus' for its ability to produce cures that were more effective than miracles, but he did not address its purpose. In Dissertatio de Arthridite; Mantisse Schematica; De Acupunctura; et Orationes Tres (1683), Willem ten Rhijne, a physician with the Dutch East India Company, presented the most systematic and informative European account of the practice. Ten Rhijne was aware that acupuncture was used to treat pain, but he was more attentive to the techniques used to puncture the skin (such as whether the needle was inserted by twisting or tapping) than he was to the medical system underlying it. He was detailed in his account when describing the materials from which the needles were made, comparing them favourably to the unrefined steel of 'barbarous European surgeons', but he translated Qi - what we might think of today as 'energy flows' - as 'breath' (flatus, spiritus) and so hypothesised that needling was intended to relieve excessive air. Engelbert Kaempfer's important study of Chinese medicine devotes a chapter to acupuncture, but in his more widely read History of Japan Kaempfer suggests that the Japanese surgeons who questioned Jesuit priests about medical practices were themselves more interested in blood-letting than in Qi points.

The interests of the surgeons in Kaempfer's account, however misrepresented, remind us nonetheless that while western authors devoted themselves to commentary that often undermined the theories of eastern physicians, the practice of acupuncture was itself the subject of great debate in China and Japan. The spread of epidemics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries meant that fever was a concern within Chinese medicine, ushering in new emphases on botany, pharmacology, and physiology. In this changing climate, the traditional place of acupuncture was highly contested. During the eighteenth century, a general shift to differentiate learned medicine saw prominent physicians abandon the art of acupuncture and, in 1822, the practice was banned by an imperial edict and removed from the medical curriculum.

Acupuncture

As with the practice of cupping, in early modern Europe knowledge of the techniques and overarching purpose of acupuncture was
long-standing but inexact. Through increased trade and missionary
activity, communication with China and Japan was opened up, facilitating contact between Jesuits, Dutch traders, and Chinese and Japanese experts and thus allowing for fresh awareness of the
techniques of acupuncture.

Acupuncture needles are found in a number of medical and scientific collections from the Enlightenment period. Within the collection of the Irish
physician and antiquarian Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), whose bequest to the nation of over 71,000 objects became the founding collection of the British Museum, are a set of three silver acupuncture needles contained within a lacquered wood box originally owned by the
Jesuit Engelbert Kaempfer (see British Museum, As,SLMisc.1077).

The first woodcut engraving is taken from Kaempfer's account of the art of acupuncture, contained in his 1712 treatise, Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V. The illustration depicts a relatively accurate representation of acupuncture needles and their case. Yet at the same time, the depiction of a languid female nude with an open kimono alludes to an exotic, highly gendered and erotic, proto-orientalist context for their use. As Kaempfer's image suggests, whether such items were exotic curiosities or surgical items of study depended largely on how a person determined their use. On the whole, accounts of Far Eastern acupuncture, relayed by missionaries or physicians alike, sought to align acupuncture within traditional Western medical categories. Needles like Sloane's sat on the boundary between exotica (or curiosities) and an increasingly globalised, empirical medical knowledge.

The first printed treatise to mention the practice of acupuncture was De Medicina Indorum by Jacobus Bontius (1592-1631), which appeared after his death in 1642 (see image). Bontius praised acupuncture, which he called the art of the 'stylus argenteus' for its ability to produce cures that were more effective than miracles, but he did not address its purpose. In Dissertatio de Arthridite; Mantisse Schematica; De Acupunctura; et Orationes Tres (1683), Willem ten Rhijne, a physician with the Dutch East India Company, presented the most systematic and informative European account of the practice. Ten Rhijne was aware that acupuncture was used to treat pain, but he was more attentive to the techniques used to puncture the skin (such as whether the needle was inserted by twisting or tapping) than he was to the medical system underlying it. He was detailed in his account when describing the materials from which the needles were made, comparing them favourably to the unrefined steel of 'barbarous European surgeons', but he translated Qi - what we might think of today as 'energy flows' - as 'breath' (flatus, spiritus) and so hypothesised that needling was intended to relieve excessive air. Engelbert Kaempfer's important study of Chinese medicine devotes a chapter to acupuncture, but in his more widely read History of Japan Kaempfer suggests that the Japanese surgeons who questioned Jesuit priests about medical practices were themselves more interested in blood-letting than in Qi points.

The interests of the surgeons in Kaempfer's account, however misrepresented, remind us nonetheless that while western authors devoted themselves to commentary that often undermined the theories of eastern physicians, the practice of acupuncture was itself the subject of great debate in China and Japan. The spread of epidemics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries meant that fever was a concern within Chinese medicine, ushering in new emphases on botany, pharmacology, and physiology. In this changing climate, the traditional place of acupuncture was highly contested. During the eighteenth century, a general shift to differentiate learned medicine saw prominent physicians abandon the art of acupuncture and, in 1822, the practice was banned by an imperial edict and removed from the medical curriculum.

Cheese and Skin

At
first glance, Aristotle and Renaissance cheesemakers have very little in common.
Yet Renaissance physicians thought otherwise. For according to them, cheesemakers and Aristotle shared a
certain knowledge of the surface (or skin) of bodies - human bodies and
coagulated milk. In 1477, the Italian physician and diplomat
Pantaleone da Confienza published Summa Lacticiniorum, the first treatise on milk and
dairy products. This monograph drew clear comparisons between Aristotle's knowledge and that of artisan cheesemakers, who were mostly women - a fact reflected in this image of a fresco at Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento, Italy.

Aristotle used cheese as an analogy, with this dairy substance becoming an explanatory
tool in different parts of his work, and for different purposes. The process of
coagulation of milk through the action of rennet (which came mostly from the stomachs of sheep and goats) was useful for illustrating the process of generation
of a foetus in utero:

the rennet on milk acted just as active male semen on passive
menstrual blood in order to create and shape human life (Generation of Animals, I, xx);

the formation
of human skin as a crust made of dried flesh which captured the vapours of
foetal concoction inside the body was similar to how rind on cheese is formed (Generation of Animals, II, vi);

the
processes of transformation of natural matter through the action of hot and
cold elements (Meteorology, book IV);

and finally, the process through which worms and insects could be generated spontaneously from rotten matter (History of
Animals, V, xxxi).

The cosmological connections between generation,
putrefaction, skin, and cheese are many, and indeed predate Aristotle. We only have to recall the myth surrounding the invention of cheese, a tale widespread
in cultures of south-west Asia. It tells the story of a nomadic traveller who filled his bags, which were made from the stomachs of animals, with milk at the onset of a long journey, only to find it coagulated when he had reached his destination. Or we can turn to the famous Menocchio, the
protagonist of Carlo Ginzburg’s The
Cheese and the Worms, who built a materialistic pagan cosmology based on
the belief in spontaneous generation out of rotten cheese.

But it was Pantaleone writing in the late 15th century who drew more specific links between cheesemakers and Aristotle, evident in the passages that describe his
travels through Western Europe while seeking new observations on cheesemaking. In fact, he recalled all the relevant Aristotelian passages,
particularly those that drew an analogy between human skin and cheese rind. He referenced these important natural philosophical principles by referring to the
actions of the hands of these illiterate cheesemakers. Those artisans 'stored
cheeses in chilly and lightened places, with ample windows for the circulation
of the air, on clean shelves, smoothing them down with their hands'. Pantaleone
remarked that if one were to ask these artisans why they preserve the cheese in the way
they do, 'they would reply that they don’t know the reason', since many of
them 'simply follow habit and tradition'. This learned physician was fascinated
by the artisanal skills, mainly non-verbal, of the cheesemakers. For, though presumably ignorant of Aristotle’s natural philosophy and Galen’s theory of complexions, they seemed more well informed than others of how to stimulate and encourage natural processes of transformation.

It is significant that Pantaleone often refers to these artisans as magistri and doctores,using such terms to reflect their learned status in their art of creating smooth surfaces from the fermentation and coagulation of matter.

PS

Further Reading:

Paul
Kindstedt, Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western
Civilization (White River Junction, Vt., 2012)

Piero
Camporesi, The Anatomy of the Senses: Natural Symbols in Medieval and Early
Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1995)

Image: Castle
of Buonconsiglio, Trent, The cycle of the
months, detail of the month of June (early 15th century). Women
are shown milking, transporting milk in wooden containers, making butter, and
making cheese by modelling the matter with their own hands.

Cheese and Skin

At
first glance, Aristotle and Renaissance cheesemakers have very little in common.
Yet Renaissance physicians thought otherwise. For according to them, cheesemakers and Aristotle shared a
certain knowledge of the surface (or skin) of bodies - human bodies and
coagulated milk. In 1477, the Italian physician and diplomat
Pantaleone da Confienza published Summa Lacticiniorum, the first treatise on milk and
dairy products. This monograph drew clear comparisons between Aristotle's knowledge and that of artisan cheesemakers, who were mostly women - a fact reflected in this image of a fresco at Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento, Italy.

Aristotle used cheese as an analogy, with this dairy substance becoming an explanatory
tool in different parts of his work, and for different purposes. The process of
coagulation of milk through the action of rennet (which came mostly from the stomachs of sheep and goats) was useful for illustrating the process of generation
of a foetus in utero:

the rennet on milk acted just as active male semen on passive
menstrual blood in order to create and shape human life (Generation of Animals, I, xx);

the formation
of human skin as a crust made of dried flesh which captured the vapours of
foetal concoction inside the body was similar to how rind on cheese is formed (Generation of Animals, II, vi);

the
processes of transformation of natural matter through the action of hot and
cold elements (Meteorology, book IV);

and finally, the process through which worms and insects could be generated spontaneously from rotten matter (History of
Animals, V, xxxi).

The cosmological connections between generation,
putrefaction, skin, and cheese are many, and indeed predate Aristotle. We only have to recall the myth surrounding the invention of cheese, a tale widespread
in cultures of south-west Asia. It tells the story of a nomadic traveller who filled his bags, which were made from the stomachs of animals, with milk at the onset of a long journey, only to find it coagulated when he had reached his destination. Or we can turn to the famous Menocchio, the
protagonist of Carlo Ginzburg’s The
Cheese and the Worms, who built a materialistic pagan cosmology based on
the belief in spontaneous generation out of rotten cheese.

But it was Pantaleone writing in the late 15th century who drew more specific links between cheesemakers and Aristotle, evident in the passages that describe his
travels through Western Europe while seeking new observations on cheesemaking. In fact, he recalled all the relevant Aristotelian passages,
particularly those that drew an analogy between human skin and cheese rind. He referenced these important natural philosophical principles by referring to the
actions of the hands of these illiterate cheesemakers. Those artisans 'stored
cheeses in chilly and lightened places, with ample windows for the circulation
of the air, on clean shelves, smoothing them down with their hands'. Pantaleone
remarked that if one were to ask these artisans why they preserve the cheese in the way
they do, 'they would reply that they don’t know the reason', since many of
them 'simply follow habit and tradition'. This learned physician was fascinated
by the artisanal skills, mainly non-verbal, of the cheesemakers. For, though presumably ignorant of Aristotle’s natural philosophy and Galen’s theory of complexions, they seemed more well informed than others of how to stimulate and encourage natural processes of transformation.

It is significant that Pantaleone often refers to these artisans as magistri and doctores,using such terms to reflect their learned status in their art of creating smooth surfaces from the fermentation and coagulation of matter.

PS

Further Reading:

Paul
Kindstedt, Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western
Civilization (White River Junction, Vt., 2012)

Piero
Camporesi, The Anatomy of the Senses: Natural Symbols in Medieval and Early
Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1995)

Image: Castle
of Buonconsiglio, Trent, The cycle of the
months, detail of the month of June (early 15th century). Women
are shown milking, transporting milk in wooden containers, making butter, and
making cheese by modelling the matter with their own hands.

Ironing out Wrinkles

Despite a plethora of early modern recipes for
beautifying the skin, wrinkles as a skin concern are rarely addressed directly in these. Out of more than 200 recipes for beautifying skin within the 1561 work I secreti della signora Isabella
Cortese (The Secrets of the Lady Isabella Cortese), there is just one
that refers to wrinkles, which features in a section on cosmetic waters. It is a
water to make the face beautiful 'without wrinkles' (Ch. 89: Acqua da uiso
che’l fa bello senza rughe). There is also a recipe for an oil to preserve
youthfulness (Ch. 56: Olio per conseruar la giouentu), which may have been intended to treat wrinkles along with other effects of old age. It is possible that many of Cortese's other recipes do also refer to treating wrinkles, though indirectly, with references to smoothing the skin or making it more lustrous. The ideal skin should be polished, freckle- and spot-free, and pale. A modicum of rosiness was desirable in the cheeks, as it alluded to an ideal sanguine complexion, although redness in the face was detrimental and
the subject of many recipes. There are the many vague recipes to ‘make the face
beautiful’. These equally might concern wrinkly skin. Similarly, Gli Experimenti
of Caterina Sforza (1463-1509) is awash with recipes to make oneself
beautiful (A far bella) and remedy issues such as freckles, spots, and
redness. However, wrinkles are not mentioned by name. A century and a
half later, Thomas Jeamson’s Artificiall Embellishments or Arts Best
Directions. How to Preserve Beauty or Procure It (1665) also covered
the same concerns, but again does not mention wrinkles explicitly.

The reason for this seeming omission is actually rather simple. Wrinkles brought on by old age
were a natural phenomenon, caused by the body's moisture drying out. Thus, it was seen as ‘incurable’. Each person (male or female) was born with a certain quantity of innate
moisture, termed ‘radical moisture’. Over time, this dried out slowly with the body's heat. This concept, introduced by Galen and later expanded
further by medieval Arabic scholars, was illustrated by a metaphorical oil
lamp. The oily wick, symbolising the radical moisture, is consumed by
the flame. In alchemy, the quintessence was the radical moisture of metals, and
its creation and consumption by an alchemist could delay or even remove the
marks of old age. Erasmus comments on this in his 1518 work Oration in Praise of the Art of
Medicine (Declamatio in laudem artis medicinae): 'for it is not a
fable, but rather attested by a number of witnesses that by means of the fifth
essence man can shed decrepitude like a snakeskin and rejuvenate himself'.

Wrinkles of old age could not be cured with the
ointments or waters found in beauty recipes. The only wrinkles that could be treated
were premature ones, quite unconnected to the ageing process. In his chapter on
wrinkles (de rugis) Girolamo Mercuriale (see De decoratione, 1585, ch. 23) commented that 'regarding the wrinkles that occur on
account of age, people may be able to sometimes hide them by painting them but
they cannot be cured. However when wrinkles are caused by other causes of
disease, they can receive treatment'. For Mercuriale, wrinkles that could be
treated were those caused by disease and fever, as well as those on the bodies of fat
people who had slimmed down (he also includes here the wombs of women who had given
birth frequently). Similarly in Giambattista della Porta’s 1558 Magia Naturalis (Natural
Magic), many of the recipes refer to wrinkles on the belly or breasts
after childbearing, or those caused by the sun. He does nevertheless include three
recipes for 'a wrinkled face'.

In De decoratione, Mercuriale noted that one of the
causes of premature wrinkles on the hands and faces of women was due to them
washing with warm rather than cold water. Wrinkles could be spotted by their
roughness and unevenness, which was due to the ‘fleshy material’ under the skin drying up
and thus ‘melting’ away, leaving the loose folds of skin. Mercuriale advised
making sure that the skin was stretched in an even manner to avoid premature
wrinkles. This could be achieved by rubbing the skin with either sweet oil or
goose or chicken fat mixed with a bit of red lead oxide. He also remarked without
further comment that some people used human fat for this purpose.

To disguise wrinkles, Mercuriale proposed three anti-wrinkle medicines (medicamentum derugatorium). He claimed that these were better than alchemical remedies, such as ‘sublimated silver water’, which were harmful to one's health although popular with 'many women'. The first
two of Mercuriale's medicines came with a certain pedigree in their authorship. The remedy from Paul of Aegina (AD 7) involved mixing figs with bryony, vetch flour, and honey. It was noted that even
rubbing vetch flour alone on the face was helpful, adding that a mixture of only honey and vinegar placed in an alembic also did a marvellous job in
hiding facial wrinkles. The second remedy came from Galen. This consisted of mixing together terebinth, litharge, and white olive oil (derived from immature olives). The third medicine was a contemporary recipe, one which 'women are in the habit of obtaining,
requesting frequently from doctors'. It involved boiling the roots of sea holly
in rainwater and adding chalk made from egg shells. This decoction would
then be applied to the face and hands. The chalk alone could be mixed with vinegar
and rubbed on the face to achieve the desired effect. In addition, a mixture of cuttlefish bone dust
and runny honey or paste made from the ashes of a burnt ox horn with vinegar could also be smeared
on the face - though you would have to lie down for a bit for this last recipe.

All these recipes could only delay the onset of wrinkles or help hide
premature ones. Wrinkles from old age were insurmountable!

Ironing out Wrinkles

Despite a plethora of early modern recipes for
beautifying the skin, wrinkles as a skin concern are rarely addressed directly in these. Out of more than 200 recipes for beautifying skin within the 1561 work I secreti della signora Isabella
Cortese (The Secrets of the Lady Isabella Cortese), there is just one
that refers to wrinkles, which features in a section on cosmetic waters. It is a
water to make the face beautiful 'without wrinkles' (Ch. 89: Acqua da uiso
che’l fa bello senza rughe). There is also a recipe for an oil to preserve
youthfulness (Ch. 56: Olio per conseruar la giouentu), which may have been intended to treat wrinkles along with other effects of old age. It is possible that many of Cortese's other recipes do also refer to treating wrinkles, though indirectly, with references to smoothing the skin or making it more lustrous. The ideal skin should be polished, freckle- and spot-free, and pale. A modicum of rosiness was desirable in the cheeks, as it alluded to an ideal sanguine complexion, although redness in the face was detrimental and
the subject of many recipes. There are the many vague recipes to ‘make the face
beautiful’. These equally might concern wrinkly skin. Similarly, Gli Experimenti
of Caterina Sforza (1463-1509) is awash with recipes to make oneself
beautiful (A far bella) and remedy issues such as freckles, spots, and
redness. However, wrinkles are not mentioned by name. A century and a
half later, Thomas Jeamson’s Artificiall Embellishments or Arts Best
Directions. How to Preserve Beauty or Procure It (1665) also covered
the same concerns, but again does not mention wrinkles explicitly.

The reason for this seeming omission is actually rather simple. Wrinkles brought on by old age
were a natural phenomenon, caused by the body's moisture drying out. Thus, it was seen as ‘incurable’. Each person (male or female) was born with a certain quantity of innate
moisture, termed ‘radical moisture’. Over time, this dried out slowly with the body's heat. This concept, introduced by Galen and later expanded
further by medieval Arabic scholars, was illustrated by a metaphorical oil
lamp. The oily wick, symbolising the radical moisture, is consumed by
the flame. In alchemy, the quintessence was the radical moisture of metals, and
its creation and consumption by an alchemist could delay or even remove the
marks of old age. Erasmus comments on this in his 1518 work Oration in Praise of the Art of
Medicine (Declamatio in laudem artis medicinae): 'for it is not a
fable, but rather attested by a number of witnesses that by means of the fifth
essence man can shed decrepitude like a snakeskin and rejuvenate himself'.

Wrinkles of old age could not be cured with the
ointments or waters found in beauty recipes. The only wrinkles that could be treated
were premature ones, quite unconnected to the ageing process. In his chapter on
wrinkles (de rugis) Girolamo Mercuriale (see De decoratione, 1585, ch. 23) commented that 'regarding the wrinkles that occur on
account of age, people may be able to sometimes hide them by painting them but
they cannot be cured. However when wrinkles are caused by other causes of
disease, they can receive treatment'. For Mercuriale, wrinkles that could be
treated were those caused by disease and fever, as well as those on the bodies of fat
people who had slimmed down (he also includes here the wombs of women who had given
birth frequently). Similarly in Giambattista della Porta’s 1558 Magia Naturalis (Natural
Magic), many of the recipes refer to wrinkles on the belly or breasts
after childbearing, or those caused by the sun. He does nevertheless include three
recipes for 'a wrinkled face'.

In De decoratione, Mercuriale noted that one of the
causes of premature wrinkles on the hands and faces of women was due to them
washing with warm rather than cold water. Wrinkles could be spotted by their
roughness and unevenness, which was due to the ‘fleshy material’ under the skin drying up
and thus ‘melting’ away, leaving the loose folds of skin. Mercuriale advised
making sure that the skin was stretched in an even manner to avoid premature
wrinkles. This could be achieved by rubbing the skin with either sweet oil or
goose or chicken fat mixed with a bit of red lead oxide. He also remarked without
further comment that some people used human fat for this purpose.

To disguise wrinkles, Mercuriale proposed three anti-wrinkle medicines (medicamentum derugatorium). He claimed that these were better than alchemical remedies, such as ‘sublimated silver water’, which were harmful to one's health although popular with 'many women'. The first
two of Mercuriale's medicines came with a certain pedigree in their authorship. The remedy from Paul of Aegina (AD 7) involved mixing figs with bryony, vetch flour, and honey. It was noted that even
rubbing vetch flour alone on the face was helpful, adding that a mixture of only honey and vinegar placed in an alembic also did a marvellous job in
hiding facial wrinkles. The second remedy came from Galen. This consisted of mixing together terebinth, litharge, and white olive oil (derived from immature olives). The third medicine was a contemporary recipe, one which 'women are in the habit of obtaining,
requesting frequently from doctors'. It involved boiling the roots of sea holly
in rainwater and adding chalk made from egg shells. This decoction would
then be applied to the face and hands. The chalk alone could be mixed with vinegar
and rubbed on the face to achieve the desired effect. In addition, a mixture of cuttlefish bone dust
and runny honey or paste made from the ashes of a burnt ox horn with vinegar could also be smeared
on the face - though you would have to lie down for a bit for this last recipe.

All these recipes could only delay the onset of wrinkles or help hide
premature ones. Wrinkles from old age were insurmountable!

Goats, Sea Breams, and Skin in Natural Magic and Natural History

A blend of humanism, love for classical sources, observation, and
experimentation brought about rather peculiar outcomes in the early modern period. One particular example is a description of fish-hunting offered by both Giovanni Battista Della
Porta and Ulisse Aldrovandi. These authors relied on Halieutica, a 2nd-century work on fishing by the Greek poet Oppian, which was published together with a Latin translation in 1517 by the famous Venetian printer Aldus Manutius.

Della Porta wrote one of the most important
scientific bestsellers of the early modern period, Magia naturalis, published first in Latin in 1558 and then later as a new, and much
expanded, edition in 1589. The book was translated into Italian, French, Dutch,
German, and English, and by the middle of the 17th century more than
50 editions of the work had been published. According to Della Porta, natural magic was based on the observation of the mechanics of nature and an
imitation of this.

'It appears to us that Magic is nothing else than a kind of contemplation of nature. The reason is that by examining the motions and trasmutations of the heavens, the stars, the elements, as well as of the animals, plants, minerals, their births and deaths, in this way one can discover the hidden secrets which our science uncovers from the face of nature.'

Giovanni Battista della Porta, Magia naturalis (1589)

Ulisse Aldrovandi is one of the most famous naturalists of the early modern period. He was also a collector and author of a significant number of manuscripts, which were mostly published posthumously. Among his writings, he wrote a large volume on fishes, De piscibus (1613). It is typical of late Renaissance natural history, listing for every fish included mythological and literary sources, its habits, the food it consumed, the places in which it could be found, and the ways in which to catch it.

It seems then that natural magic and natural history were genres in which discussions to catch fish figured prominently. The technique for fishing sea bream (sargus or sargo) involved this fish’s love for goats, suggesting that fishermen might dress in goat skin. And we read in the words of Della Porta the following:

'Sea breams are in love with goats, so much so than when goats go by the sea they, or they see the shadow of a goat appearing on the water, they run and begin to happily jump above the water, taken by a burning desire to get close to them … Fishermen dresse themselves with goat skin, put the goat’s horns on their head, and thus dressed wait for the sea bream; the fishes run around him, and at that point he throws in the water the skin: the sea breams will swim around the skin and it will be easy for the fisherman to catch them.'

Without specifying whether they observed this technique or not, when it came to sea bream the naturalist and the magician were on the same page.

William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, N.J., 1994)

Image of a Sea Bream copied from Conrad Gessner and published in Ulisse Aldrovandi, De piscibus (Bologna, 1613)

Goats, Sea Breams, and Skin in Natural Magic and Natural History

A blend of humanism, love for classical sources, observation, and
experimentation brought about rather peculiar outcomes in the early modern period. One particular example is a description of fish-hunting offered by both Giovanni Battista Della
Porta and Ulisse Aldrovandi. These authors relied on Halieutica, a 2nd-century work on fishing by the Greek poet Oppian, which was published together with a Latin translation in 1517 by the famous Venetian printer Aldus Manutius.

Della Porta wrote one of the most important
scientific bestsellers of the early modern period, Magia naturalis, published first in Latin in 1558 and then later as a new, and much
expanded, edition in 1589. The book was translated into Italian, French, Dutch,
German, and English, and by the middle of the 17th century more than
50 editions of the work had been published. According to Della Porta, natural magic was based on the observation of the mechanics of nature and an
imitation of this.

'It appears to us that Magic is nothing else than a kind of contemplation of nature. The reason is that by examining the motions and trasmutations of the heavens, the stars, the elements, as well as of the animals, plants, minerals, their births and deaths, in this way one can discover the hidden secrets which our science uncovers from the face of nature.'

Giovanni Battista della Porta, Magia naturalis (1589)

Ulisse Aldrovandi is one of the most famous naturalists of the early modern period. He was also a collector and author of a significant number of manuscripts, which were mostly published posthumously. Among his writings, he wrote a large volume on fishes, De piscibus (1613). It is typical of late Renaissance natural history, listing for every fish included mythological and literary sources, its habits, the food it consumed, the places in which it could be found, and the ways in which to catch it.

It seems then that natural magic and natural history were genres in which discussions to catch fish figured prominently. The technique for fishing sea bream (sargus or sargo) involved this fish’s love for goats, suggesting that fishermen might dress in goat skin. And we read in the words of Della Porta the following:

'Sea breams are in love with goats, so much so than when goats go by the sea they, or they see the shadow of a goat appearing on the water, they run and begin to happily jump above the water, taken by a burning desire to get close to them … Fishermen dresse themselves with goat skin, put the goat’s horns on their head, and thus dressed wait for the sea bream; the fishes run around him, and at that point he throws in the water the skin: the sea breams will swim around the skin and it will be easy for the fisherman to catch them.'

Without specifying whether they observed this technique or not, when it came to sea bream the naturalist and the magician were on the same page.

The Anatomy of Resurrection

This well-known illustration from Jacopo Berengario da
Carpi’s 1522 anatomy handbook is meant to show the structure and location of the muscles within the abdomen and chest, but it undoubtedly achieves much more than
this. The male figure is captured in the moment of having just lifted up his skin, willingly offering the viewer the chance to observe his
internal layers. At the same time, a religious
dimension pervades the image: ideas of sanctity and martyrdom are conveyed by
this self-displaying man encircled by a radial ornament. In the 16th century, it was usually the
bodies of executed criminals that were dissected publicly for the benefit of medical students and
other onlookers. This picture seems to tell us
that prior to execution and dissection, the condemned individual had
been illuminated by the spiritual light of consolation after having
experienced a conversion. The rays of light are almost like a prolongation of
his earthly body into a heavenly one. What appears to be a tear upon his cheek is suggestive of this man scarifying himself - a martyr for knowledge of the human body.

The literary genre of the ars moriendi (the art of dying) flourished in late
medieval Europe. Handbooks containing instructions for the preparation of a
good and Christian death became widespread in urban centres. In the same
period, the benefits of confession and absolution were extended also to those criminals
condemned to execution. This new concern was reflected by the early 14th century in turn through the
foundation of confraternities devoted to
ensuring a good death for criminals. In northern Europe these activities
were administered by clerics. In Italy, the confraternities were formed of laymen who gave
themselves the task of assisting with the religious care of the condemned until the
very moment they were sent to the scaffold.

These Italian brotherhoods of comforters, as they were known, were responsible for both the comforting of the condemned until the very point of execution and
for the dramatic representations of religious events, in particular the Passion
and the Resurrection of Christ. Audiences of the faithful flocked to outdoor
stages on religious feast days to see dramatisations on the themes of death and
martyrdom. A few days later they might have returned to the same place to witness
the rituals that accompanied a prisoner’s final hours.

Comforters’ manuals were explicit in advising the comforter to ensure that the condemned considered himself martyr and, as such, should behave in an appropriate way. In addition to singing songs and offering prayers, the comforters presented those who were due to be executed with a small tablet (tavoletta). These little plaques often depicted the instruments of the Passion, the Crucifixion
of Christ, or the martyrdom of a saint. The comforter's role was to keep these tavolette as close to the face of the condemned as possible, in order to keep his
attention fixed on the image while he was on public display. This enabled his mind to remain focused on the virtuous and comforting examples of Christ and other martyrs in the midst of unfriendly shouts and insults being hurled by the public before his execution.

Idealised images of dissected men and women, typical
of 16th-century anatomy books, functioned on several levels. They alleviated the actual distress and feelings of disgust
surrounding the rather violent and graphic act of dismembering a corpse. Yet at the same time, an image of the resurrected flayed man reveals another dimension of Renaissance anatomical imagery. It reveals the
connection between the martyred, the criminal, and the dissected body – all
bodies torn apart in the pursuit of some kind of truth.

The Anatomy of Resurrection

This well-known illustration from Jacopo Berengario da
Carpi’s 1522 anatomy handbook is meant to show the structure and location of the muscles within the abdomen and chest, but it undoubtedly achieves much more than
this. The male figure is captured in the moment of having just lifted up his skin, willingly offering the viewer the chance to observe his
internal layers. At the same time, a religious
dimension pervades the image: ideas of sanctity and martyrdom are conveyed by
this self-displaying man encircled by a radial ornament. In the 16th century, it was usually the
bodies of executed criminals that were dissected publicly for the benefit of medical students and
other onlookers. This picture seems to tell us
that prior to execution and dissection, the condemned individual had
been illuminated by the spiritual light of consolation after having
experienced a conversion. The rays of light are almost like a prolongation of
his earthly body into a heavenly one. What appears to be a tear upon his cheek is suggestive of this man scarifying himself - a martyr for knowledge of the human body.

The literary genre of the ars moriendi (the art of dying) flourished in late
medieval Europe. Handbooks containing instructions for the preparation of a
good and Christian death became widespread in urban centres. In the same
period, the benefits of confession and absolution were extended also to those criminals
condemned to execution. This new concern was reflected by the early 14th century in turn through the
foundation of confraternities devoted to
ensuring a good death for criminals. In northern Europe these activities
were administered by clerics. In Italy, the confraternities were formed of laymen who gave
themselves the task of assisting with the religious care of the condemned until the
very moment they were sent to the scaffold.

These Italian brotherhoods of comforters, as they were known, were responsible for both the comforting of the condemned until the very point of execution and
for the dramatic representations of religious events, in particular the Passion
and the Resurrection of Christ. Audiences of the faithful flocked to outdoor
stages on religious feast days to see dramatisations on the themes of death and
martyrdom. A few days later they might have returned to the same place to witness
the rituals that accompanied a prisoner’s final hours.

Comforters’ manuals were explicit in advising the comforter to ensure that the condemned considered himself martyr and, as such, should behave in an appropriate way. In addition to singing songs and offering prayers, the comforters presented those who were due to be executed with a small tablet (tavoletta). These little plaques often depicted the instruments of the Passion, the Crucifixion
of Christ, or the martyrdom of a saint. The comforter's role was to keep these tavolette as close to the face of the condemned as possible, in order to keep his
attention fixed on the image while he was on public display. This enabled his mind to remain focused on the virtuous and comforting examples of Christ and other martyrs in the midst of unfriendly shouts and insults being hurled by the public before his execution.

Idealised images of dissected men and women, typical
of 16th-century anatomy books, functioned on several levels. They alleviated the actual distress and feelings of disgust
surrounding the rather violent and graphic act of dismembering a corpse. Yet at the same time, an image of the resurrected flayed man reveals another dimension of Renaissance anatomical imagery. It reveals the
connection between the martyred, the criminal, and the dissected body – all
bodies torn apart in the pursuit of some kind of truth.

My Lovely Horse

In line with Galenic principles, the colour of a horse was ascribed to its humoral temperament. The humoral
mix affected not only a horse's skin but also its disposition.

A horse dominated by yellow bile
(choleric) with a hot and dry complexion would be a chestnut colour and, by nature, light and fiery but lacking in force. If phlegmatic with a cold
and damp complexion, the horse would be white, often accompanied by a rather a
dull and slow outlook. An abundance of black bile signified a melancholic animal with
a cold and dry complexion, it would be sad and faint-hearted, coloured dun or black. And finally, if the predominant humour was blood with a
warm and damp complexion, the colour of the horse would be bay (brown with a black mane
and tail). This sanguine complexion (manifested as bay in horses and as pale skin with rosy cheeks
in humans) was the most prized, and such horses were judged to have a steady
and pleasant disposition combined with loyalty and taking easy to the rein.

This was the basic premise but the relationship
between humoral mixture and skin colour could be developed even further. For
example, in 1602 Pirro Antonio Ferraro suggested that the dappled grey (leardo chiaro) was caused by an even humoral mixture of blood
and phlegm and indicated an animal of great vigour and long life, while a dun
horse (falbo) was a mix of yellow and
black bile, both choleric and melancholic.

It was not only skin colour that reflected temperament. Markings on the horse such
as stripes, socks, or stockings could also indicate either positive or
negative characteristics in an animal’s deportment. For example, a completely black
horse (by nature melancholic) with no markings whatsoever was a complete
liability for its owner, as 'it is marvel if he drowne him not, or hurt him by
some other way' (Leonard Mascall, 1587). Nevertheless the same author believed that if a
black horse had a white spot on his forehead, a white stripe on his nose, or
a white sock or stocking on one of the back legs 'he likely to doe wel'. While
skin colour due to humoral balances was the accepted norm in judging a horse,
not all authors were convinced that markings were so essential:

'sure I am that neither with foot, white star, white list, strake, snip, phillet in the forehead, white rump, black and red flea-bytings, ostrick-feather, where it cannot be seen, meal-nose, meale-slank, bearded under his chops like a Goat, black and long fetterlocks, long main, black tail, black list, and such like, are not to be depended on as the assurant of a good Horse, for undoubtedly you shall find good and bad of all colours, but to overcome Custom, is a hard fight'

The gentleman's compleat jockey, 1697

White markings could be 'created' on a horse’s hide, and various recipes in equine treatises attest to this practice. In his 1591 work, Filippo Scaccho da Tagliacozzo recommended to use a razor to shave off the black or red hairs from the place that you wished to make white before then applying to the area a pounded paste of the roots of a squirting cucumber, nitre, and honey. The most sought-after marking was a white star on a horse’s forehead, as this could increase the animal's value substantially. In his treatise Markhams faithfull farrier (1630), Gervase Markham advocated a popular recipe for this that involved roasting sour apples, which were then peeled and applied to the horse’s forehead until the fruit cooled. If dark hairs remained, another hot apple could be applied. The blistered skin would then be treated with honey until it healed.

In addition to skin colour and markings, an early modern horse could also be judged on other marks of outward appearance, such as the shape of its back, barrel, rump, or legs. Equine treatises were able to offer advice if a horse’s overall shape needed to be improved due to it being too fat or too thin. Mascall suggested feeding a horse barley or wheat that had been soaked in water until it was of a porridge-like consistency 'to plump or puffe up a leane Horse, in short time', while a 'verie fatte' horse was to be given bran mixed with honey and warm water. Thus, in the early modern period a perfectly lovely horse could be achieved by a combination of both nature and human assistance!

My Lovely Horse

In line with Galenic principles, the colour of a horse was ascribed to its humoral temperament. The humoral
mix affected not only a horse's skin but also its disposition.

A horse dominated by yellow bile
(choleric) with a hot and dry complexion would be a chestnut colour and, by nature, light and fiery but lacking in force. If phlegmatic with a cold
and damp complexion, the horse would be white, often accompanied by a rather a
dull and slow outlook. An abundance of black bile signified a melancholic animal with
a cold and dry complexion, it would be sad and faint-hearted, coloured dun or black. And finally, if the predominant humour was blood with a
warm and damp complexion, the colour of the horse would be bay (brown with a black mane
and tail). This sanguine complexion (manifested as bay in horses and as pale skin with rosy cheeks
in humans) was the most prized, and such horses were judged to have a steady
and pleasant disposition combined with loyalty and taking easy to the rein.

This was the basic premise but the relationship
between humoral mixture and skin colour could be developed even further. For
example, in 1602 Pirro Antonio Ferraro suggested that the dappled grey (leardo chiaro) was caused by an even humoral mixture of blood
and phlegm and indicated an animal of great vigour and long life, while a dun
horse (falbo) was a mix of yellow and
black bile, both choleric and melancholic.

It was not only skin colour that reflected temperament. Markings on the horse such
as stripes, socks, or stockings could also indicate either positive or
negative characteristics in an animal’s deportment. For example, a completely black
horse (by nature melancholic) with no markings whatsoever was a complete
liability for its owner, as 'it is marvel if he drowne him not, or hurt him by
some other way' (Leonard Mascall, 1587). Nevertheless the same author believed that if a
black horse had a white spot on his forehead, a white stripe on his nose, or
a white sock or stocking on one of the back legs 'he likely to doe wel'. While
skin colour due to humoral balances was the accepted norm in judging a horse,
not all authors were convinced that markings were so essential:

'sure I am that neither with foot, white star, white list, strake, snip, phillet in the forehead, white rump, black and red flea-bytings, ostrick-feather, where it cannot be seen, meal-nose, meale-slank, bearded under his chops like a Goat, black and long fetterlocks, long main, black tail, black list, and such like, are not to be depended on as the assurant of a good Horse, for undoubtedly you shall find good and bad of all colours, but to overcome Custom, is a hard fight'

The gentleman's compleat jockey, 1697

White markings could be 'created' on a horse’s hide, and various recipes in equine treatises attest to this practice. In his 1591 work, Filippo Scaccho da Tagliacozzo recommended to use a razor to shave off the black or red hairs from the place that you wished to make white before then applying to the area a pounded paste of the roots of a squirting cucumber, nitre, and honey. The most sought-after marking was a white star on a horse’s forehead, as this could increase the animal's value substantially. In his treatise Markhams faithfull farrier (1630), Gervase Markham advocated a popular recipe for this that involved roasting sour apples, which were then peeled and applied to the horse’s forehead until the fruit cooled. If dark hairs remained, another hot apple could be applied. The blistered skin would then be treated with honey until it healed.

In addition to skin colour and markings, an early modern horse could also be judged on other marks of outward appearance, such as the shape of its back, barrel, rump, or legs. Equine treatises were able to offer advice if a horse’s overall shape needed to be improved due to it being too fat or too thin. Mascall suggested feeding a horse barley or wheat that had been soaked in water until it was of a porridge-like consistency 'to plump or puffe up a leane Horse, in short time', while a 'verie fatte' horse was to be given bran mixed with honey and warm water. Thus, in the early modern period a perfectly lovely horse could be achieved by a combination of both nature and human assistance!

Citrusmania!

Visual and written descriptions of citrus fruits – along
with a widespread desire for them – peaked between the late sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries in early modern Europe. The virtues and appearance of citrus fruits were praised in a range of sources from paintings and natural history treatises, to botanical repertoires and farming and
gardening manuals, just to name a few. Citrus fruits - oranges, lemons, and citrons - were part of the tradition of medieval dietetics, a branch of medicine classifying vegetal and animal products according to
their humoral complexion. By the middle of the seventeenth century, some
books counted as many as 80 varieties of citrus fruit and described their surfaces meticulously, often employing the same Latin term used for skin, cutis.

The first monograph, albeit short, on citrus fruits to break away from a traditional association with medical
dietetics was written by Nicolas Monardes and published in Antwerp in 1564. Monardes was a physician
from Seville who had travelled in the New World, publishing a famous account
of the flora and fauna of the Indies. De malis citriis, aurantiis, ac limoniis libelli is not illustrated but it
emphasises the artificial origins of the varieties of citrus that were, in essence, cultivated by humans
through experimentations with grafting. The multiple editions
of Pietro Andrea Mattioli’s famous commentary to the Greek botanist Dioscorides contained detailed
illustrations of citrus fruits, with considerable attention paid to their
surfaces. Writing on the so-called 'Adam’s apples' (pomi
d’Adamo), Mattioli explained how 'Their peel (scorza)
is wrinkled, irregular, and has certain small fissures, as it if had bitten by
the teeth; and that is where they got their name from, because the people
believe that these were the fruits Adam did bite in the garden of Eden. But
those are all fables.' (I discorsi di Pietro
Andrea Mattioli, Venice, 1568, p. 270) (see main image).

Even more detailed images appear in Johannes Camerarius’ Kreuttenbuch, published in 1611, in which citrus fruits were represented in a new visual dissection or anatomical style. Here the surface was placed along with sections of the interior, thus connecting the inner and the outer bodies of the fruits (see figure). In the same period, the famous northern Italian agronomist Agostino Gallo devoted an entire section of his treatise on farming to citrus gardens, praising their commercial value. From his description, it clearly emerges that citrus fruits were also shown off on the table for their aesthetic qualities.

'Gardeners make money out of the mature fruits, both the small ones and the beautiful ones. With the fruits which are not ripe one can make delicate candies, and crowns with small oranges which are pleasant to the eye and to the nose. And everybody knows how the ripe and beautiful citruses are in demand for banquets, for candying, and as food for the sick, for the preparation of medicaments, as all the experienced apothecaries know. From the peel (scorza) of the oranges one can make money, as they are used to make mustard and spiced bread, and citruses are sold to make citrus confetti. Gardeners can even make money from the rotten fruits, as they can be used to squeeze the juice or to take out the seeds […]. If the cost is constant, so is the income.'

But the most lavishly illustrated treatise on citrus fruits was written by the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Ferrari, the Hesperides sive de malorum Aureorum cultura et usu published in Rome in 1646. Ferrari was a professor of Hebrew at the Roman College and, after the election of pope Urban VIII in 1623, he became a gardener (though more like a 'horticultural adviser') for the Barberini family. He took full advantage of the documents gathered by Cassiano dal Pozzo, an eclectic collector and natural historian, and eminent member of the Academy of the Linceans. Dal Pozzo had brought together information on citrus trees and fruits from gardeners working all over Europe, but in particular from the Italian regions of Campania and Liguria. Dal Pozzo passed on all these documents to Ferrari to assist him in drafting his treatise. Ferrari's book combines naturalistic descriptions, gardening techniques, and mythological accounts of the origins of citrus fruits alongside illustrations by the likes of Domenichino, Reni, Poussin, Romanelli, and Pietro da Cortona, but to name a few. The majority of the 80 illustrations, of which 50 or so show hybrids and the teratological transformations of citrus fruits, are by the Dutch engraver Cornelis Bloemaert. Some of them were produced with the aid of a microscope. As David Freedberg notes, 'never had the surfaces of their [citrus fruits] peel been shown with such obsessive attention to every kind of texture, rugosity, lump, and protuberance' (see figure).

This is an example of one of the many varieties of lemons as described by Ferrari. Of note is the language employed, as it seems as if Ferrari was describing human skin.

'The Etruscan land of Pietrasanta, close to Liguria, generates with the name of citron-lemon (Limon citratus) the most pleasant and sweet of the lemons, born out of grafting a citrus, which is called citron-lemon because of its color and perfume. In Florence, mother of all lemons, grows the best quality of them, with a double name. The first kind is called smooth, because it is less rough; the other kind is called rough, because of its prominent lumps, or broncone because it is rough as the trunk of a tree […] Often it takes a oblong and somehow swelling shape, then it gets thinner and pointed in the upper part […] The skin (cutis) is golden when the fruit is ripe, soft and light, full of cavities (verruculis) on the upper end, mostly hispid, wrinkled (rugis caperata), and sweet around the perfumed upper end, therefore it is good to eat. The pulp (carnosa pars) is almost two fingers deep, and very soft and sweet to the palate: the part covered with 10 to 12 membranes is juicy and a little acidulous. It contains around 20 seeds.'

In any case, the Jesuit was not born in a void. Citrus fruits were used and described for commercial, aesthetic, medical, naturalistic, and technical (the juice was used in the processes of chemical tincture) reasons. The emphasis on the peel, skin, and surface is connected to a contemporary emphasis of genres such as historiae, observationes, and descriptiones in the natural sciences. Such approaches brought attention to the external appearance of these natural objects and, in turn, were influenced by commercial and technical descriptions of the integrity and peculiarities of such surfaces.

Still life with lemon peel; Willelm Kalf; 1664

Quite besides the countless representations of citrus fruits in paintings (see figure), we get a real sense of 'citrusmania' from the account of Joseph Furttenbach when travelling to the Ligurian city of San Remo in the early seventeenth century.

'We were conducted every day in the noble gardens of fruit trees that are comparable to entire woods, and that are full of oranges, citrus (and among citrus some of them were the size of a human head; someone showed me one which was 14 libbre, which I have sent, well-packaged, to Germany, and I marvelled at how a thin branch could sustain such a citrus), and lemons, so many that the branches broke under the weight of such an abundance of fruits.'

Citrusmania!

Visual and written descriptions of citrus fruits – along
with a widespread desire for them – peaked between the late sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries in early modern Europe. The virtues and appearance of citrus fruits were praised in a range of sources from paintings and natural history treatises, to botanical repertoires and farming and
gardening manuals, just to name a few. Citrus fruits - oranges, lemons, and citrons - were part of the tradition of medieval dietetics, a branch of medicine classifying vegetal and animal products according to
their humoral complexion. By the middle of the seventeenth century, some
books counted as many as 80 varieties of citrus fruit and described their surfaces meticulously, often employing the same Latin term used for skin, cutis.

The first monograph, albeit short, on citrus fruits to break away from a traditional association with medical
dietetics was written by Nicolas Monardes and published in Antwerp in 1564. Monardes was a physician
from Seville who had travelled in the New World, publishing a famous account
of the flora and fauna of the Indies. De malis citriis, aurantiis, ac limoniis libelli is not illustrated but it
emphasises the artificial origins of the varieties of citrus that were, in essence, cultivated by humans
through experimentations with grafting. The multiple editions
of Pietro Andrea Mattioli’s famous commentary to the Greek botanist Dioscorides contained detailed
illustrations of citrus fruits, with considerable attention paid to their
surfaces. Writing on the so-called 'Adam’s apples' (pomi
d’Adamo), Mattioli explained how 'Their peel (scorza)
is wrinkled, irregular, and has certain small fissures, as it if had bitten by
the teeth; and that is where they got their name from, because the people
believe that these were the fruits Adam did bite in the garden of Eden. But
those are all fables.' (I discorsi di Pietro
Andrea Mattioli, Venice, 1568, p. 270) (see main image).

Even more detailed images appear in Johannes Camerarius’ Kreuttenbuch, published in 1611, in which citrus fruits were represented in a new visual dissection or anatomical style. Here the surface was placed along with sections of the interior, thus connecting the inner and the outer bodies of the fruits (see figure). In the same period, the famous northern Italian agronomist Agostino Gallo devoted an entire section of his treatise on farming to citrus gardens, praising their commercial value. From his description, it clearly emerges that citrus fruits were also shown off on the table for their aesthetic qualities.

'Gardeners make money out of the mature fruits, both the small ones and the beautiful ones. With the fruits which are not ripe one can make delicate candies, and crowns with small oranges which are pleasant to the eye and to the nose. And everybody knows how the ripe and beautiful citruses are in demand for banquets, for candying, and as food for the sick, for the preparation of medicaments, as all the experienced apothecaries know. From the peel (scorza) of the oranges one can make money, as they are used to make mustard and spiced bread, and citruses are sold to make citrus confetti. Gardeners can even make money from the rotten fruits, as they can be used to squeeze the juice or to take out the seeds […]. If the cost is constant, so is the income.'

But the most lavishly illustrated treatise on citrus fruits was written by the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Ferrari, the Hesperides sive de malorum Aureorum cultura et usu published in Rome in 1646. Ferrari was a professor of Hebrew at the Roman College and, after the election of pope Urban VIII in 1623, he became a gardener (though more like a 'horticultural adviser') for the Barberini family. He took full advantage of the documents gathered by Cassiano dal Pozzo, an eclectic collector and natural historian, and eminent member of the Academy of the Linceans. Dal Pozzo had brought together information on citrus trees and fruits from gardeners working all over Europe, but in particular from the Italian regions of Campania and Liguria. Dal Pozzo passed on all these documents to Ferrari to assist him in drafting his treatise. Ferrari's book combines naturalistic descriptions, gardening techniques, and mythological accounts of the origins of citrus fruits alongside illustrations by the likes of Domenichino, Reni, Poussin, Romanelli, and Pietro da Cortona, but to name a few. The majority of the 80 illustrations, of which 50 or so show hybrids and the teratological transformations of citrus fruits, are by the Dutch engraver Cornelis Bloemaert. Some of them were produced with the aid of a microscope. As David Freedberg notes, 'never had the surfaces of their [citrus fruits] peel been shown with such obsessive attention to every kind of texture, rugosity, lump, and protuberance' (see figure).

This is an example of one of the many varieties of lemons as described by Ferrari. Of note is the language employed, as it seems as if Ferrari was describing human skin.

'The Etruscan land of Pietrasanta, close to Liguria, generates with the name of citron-lemon (Limon citratus) the most pleasant and sweet of the lemons, born out of grafting a citrus, which is called citron-lemon because of its color and perfume. In Florence, mother of all lemons, grows the best quality of them, with a double name. The first kind is called smooth, because it is less rough; the other kind is called rough, because of its prominent lumps, or broncone because it is rough as the trunk of a tree […] Often it takes a oblong and somehow swelling shape, then it gets thinner and pointed in the upper part […] The skin (cutis) is golden when the fruit is ripe, soft and light, full of cavities (verruculis) on the upper end, mostly hispid, wrinkled (rugis caperata), and sweet around the perfumed upper end, therefore it is good to eat. The pulp (carnosa pars) is almost two fingers deep, and very soft and sweet to the palate: the part covered with 10 to 12 membranes is juicy and a little acidulous. It contains around 20 seeds.'

In any case, the Jesuit was not born in a void. Citrus fruits were used and described for commercial, aesthetic, medical, naturalistic, and technical (the juice was used in the processes of chemical tincture) reasons. The emphasis on the peel, skin, and surface is connected to a contemporary emphasis of genres such as historiae, observationes, and descriptiones in the natural sciences. Such approaches brought attention to the external appearance of these natural objects and, in turn, were influenced by commercial and technical descriptions of the integrity and peculiarities of such surfaces.

Still life with lemon peel; Willelm Kalf; 1664

Quite besides the countless representations of citrus fruits in paintings (see figure), we get a real sense of 'citrusmania' from the account of Joseph Furttenbach when travelling to the Ligurian city of San Remo in the early seventeenth century.

'We were conducted every day in the noble gardens of fruit trees that are comparable to entire woods, and that are full of oranges, citrus (and among citrus some of them were the size of a human head; someone showed me one which was 14 libbre, which I have sent, well-packaged, to Germany, and I marvelled at how a thin branch could sustain such a citrus), and lemons, so many that the branches broke under the weight of such an abundance of fruits.'

16th-Century Tunisian Material Culture Through the Eyes of An Italian Knight

In 1574, large parts of modern-day Tunisia, including
the cities of Tunis and Bizerte, were conquered by the Ottoman Empire. This followed a
long war with the Spanish army and its allies. Miguel de
Cervantes, among others, participated in the war. In the Biblioteca
Universitaria di Bologna (BUB) is an interesting document that was written
by one of the minor military leaders from the Spanish army. The author is the Italian 'Don
Giuseppe Terla, knight of Saint Mauritius and Jerusalemite knight, for Marcello
Melchiorre' and he was one of the leaders at the Battle of Bizerte. Among the military details, his account includes descriptions of everyday life of the
Tunisian people. We read about such things as their food, the ways in which they rode horses, and their leather garments. Despite a contempt for their religious beliefs, these descriptions reflect a curious interest from the Westerners of 'Arabic' material culture and their passion
for the costumes of different peoples. Here follow some excerpts.

[344r] In that country, horses are almost always unshoed, and the majority of men riding them go around half-naked, only with large-sized trousers and a big turban on the head […] Many of the inhabitants are Arabs, [346r] who ride their horses bridleless and with no saddle, carrying long spears or small blades to throw; these are called 'ferres' which means ‘rider’ in our language, because they ride horses; the difference is that noble riders are simply called Arab knights, and the other riders. Arabs are incredibly wealthy, and many of them own 300, 400 and even 1500 camels, which they use to carry their possessions around, to work the land in their farms, and to eat (especially dried and salted, as we do with pigs); and I believe they make butter with it, as we [346v] do with cows. They hold their false religion in great esteem, and they are superstitious about all things; they wear little books and writings bound in leather, velvet, and silk around their neck, as we do with the Agnus Dei: some people wear four of them, some six, according to their taste, and they hang strings of them around their horses’ heads when they fight, as they believe in this way they are protected from all kinds of dangers. They are circumcised and they belong to the Mohameddan sect, but nonetheless they are fierce enemies of the Turks and they hate them for the tyranny they impose upon them. They don’t play games like Christians, and they never curse. They honour their churches [347r], called Mosques: they draw beautiful histories on their floors, they only access them without shoes, and once they get in, they form a row and they sing Alà Alà while some priests read stories from the Old Testament, in the version that appears in their own books, of which they have many. […] They sleep on certain [347v] skins of sheep and mutton. Some nobles have beds in their rooms, which are long and narrow, and such beds have heads taller than a man. Beds are embedded in the wall, and they are beautiful, Moorish-style, with wonderful engravings, and they use little stairs to climb up such beds and go to sleep. Some have wool mattresses and beautiful cotton blankets, and silk coloured cloths. Women never see men during daytime, but they sleep together at night. Noblemen have glass mirrors embedded in the walls of their houses, painted with some Moorish-style themes. They are jealous and shy, and some have slaves, both Christians and of their own sects, which they trade [348r] for money. They are very good at farming […] and they share many other pastimes with us, such as playing cards, dicing, etc.

16th-Century Tunisian Material Culture Through the Eyes of An Italian Knight

In 1574, large parts of modern-day Tunisia, including
the cities of Tunis and Bizerte, were conquered by the Ottoman Empire. This followed a
long war with the Spanish army and its allies. Miguel de
Cervantes, among others, participated in the war. In the Biblioteca
Universitaria di Bologna (BUB) is an interesting document that was written
by one of the minor military leaders from the Spanish army. The author is the Italian 'Don
Giuseppe Terla, knight of Saint Mauritius and Jerusalemite knight, for Marcello
Melchiorre' and he was one of the leaders at the Battle of Bizerte. Among the military details, his account includes descriptions of everyday life of the
Tunisian people. We read about such things as their food, the ways in which they rode horses, and their leather garments. Despite a contempt for their religious beliefs, these descriptions reflect a curious interest from the Westerners of 'Arabic' material culture and their passion
for the costumes of different peoples. Here follow some excerpts.

[344r] In that country, horses are almost always unshoed, and the majority of men riding them go around half-naked, only with large-sized trousers and a big turban on the head […] Many of the inhabitants are Arabs, [346r] who ride their horses bridleless and with no saddle, carrying long spears or small blades to throw; these are called 'ferres' which means ‘rider’ in our language, because they ride horses; the difference is that noble riders are simply called Arab knights, and the other riders. Arabs are incredibly wealthy, and many of them own 300, 400 and even 1500 camels, which they use to carry their possessions around, to work the land in their farms, and to eat (especially dried and salted, as we do with pigs); and I believe they make butter with it, as we [346v] do with cows. They hold their false religion in great esteem, and they are superstitious about all things; they wear little books and writings bound in leather, velvet, and silk around their neck, as we do with the Agnus Dei: some people wear four of them, some six, according to their taste, and they hang strings of them around their horses’ heads when they fight, as they believe in this way they are protected from all kinds of dangers. They are circumcised and they belong to the Mohameddan sect, but nonetheless they are fierce enemies of the Turks and they hate them for the tyranny they impose upon them. They don’t play games like Christians, and they never curse. They honour their churches [347r], called Mosques: they draw beautiful histories on their floors, they only access them without shoes, and once they get in, they form a row and they sing Alà Alà while some priests read stories from the Old Testament, in the version that appears in their own books, of which they have many. […] They sleep on certain [347v] skins of sheep and mutton. Some nobles have beds in their rooms, which are long and narrow, and such beds have heads taller than a man. Beds are embedded in the wall, and they are beautiful, Moorish-style, with wonderful engravings, and they use little stairs to climb up such beds and go to sleep. Some have wool mattresses and beautiful cotton blankets, and silk coloured cloths. Women never see men during daytime, but they sleep together at night. Noblemen have glass mirrors embedded in the walls of their houses, painted with some Moorish-style themes. They are jealous and shy, and some have slaves, both Christians and of their own sects, which they trade [348r] for money. They are very good at farming […] and they share many other pastimes with us, such as playing cards, dicing, etc.

Living with Horses

Late
sixteenth and early seventeenth-century noble families in Italy loved to spend
time at their country villas. A new vogue for husbandry, the simple life and
the fresh air of the countryside took root among the patrician classes.
Noblemen and women were eager to spend time away from their political duties
and from the dangerous miasmas prevalent in the urban environment, where plague
remained a significant threat. While in the country, they enjoyed the pleasures
of farming, gardening, hunting, and appreciation of animals - especially
horses. This change from town to country life encouraged the development of
expertise in livestock and animal husbandry.

The
powerful Gozzadini family, famously portrayed by painter Lavinia Fontana in the
1580s, at their farm in Sala (a few miles from Bologna) employed two renowned
experts in their field. Francesco Valentino Barbieri, the ‘estate manager’ [fattore], who in 1632 had overall
responsibility for the family’s thirty-three horses, and Pellegrino Ortolani, called
the ‘stableman’ [cavallaro], who
compiled a list of the horses. The list is catalogued amongst several other
manuscripts that detail a variety of equine medications, including unguents to
treat skin and hair, and instructions for bloodletting [https://renaissanceskin.ac.uk/themes/living/#image_thumb111]. Each horse
is recorded by name, as well as the animal’s age, colour, and any significant
markings. The fact that individual, even affectionate names, as well as comments
on the horses’ behaviour were included evidences the powerful bond that existed
between humans and their horses in this period.

“List of
horses made today 4 October 1632 with my stableman Pellegrino Ortolani.

Living with Horses

Late
sixteenth and early seventeenth-century noble families in Italy loved to spend
time at their country villas. A new vogue for husbandry, the simple life and
the fresh air of the countryside took root among the patrician classes.
Noblemen and women were eager to spend time away from their political duties
and from the dangerous miasmas prevalent in the urban environment, where plague
remained a significant threat. While in the country, they enjoyed the pleasures
of farming, gardening, hunting, and appreciation of animals - especially
horses. This change from town to country life encouraged the development of
expertise in livestock and animal husbandry.

The
powerful Gozzadini family, famously portrayed by painter Lavinia Fontana in the
1580s, at their farm in Sala (a few miles from Bologna) employed two renowned
experts in their field. Francesco Valentino Barbieri, the ‘estate manager’ [fattore], who in 1632 had overall
responsibility for the family’s thirty-three horses, and Pellegrino Ortolani, called
the ‘stableman’ [cavallaro], who
compiled a list of the horses. The list is catalogued amongst several other
manuscripts that detail a variety of equine medications, including unguents to
treat skin and hair, and instructions for bloodletting [https://renaissanceskin.ac.uk/themes/living/#image_thumb111]. Each horse
is recorded by name, as well as the animal’s age, colour, and any significant
markings. The fact that individual, even affectionate names, as well as comments
on the horses’ behaviour were included evidences the powerful bond that existed
between humans and their horses in this period.

“List of
horses made today 4 October 1632 with my stableman Pellegrino Ortolani.

Surviving Heatwaves in Seventeenth-Century Florence

Between the end of June and the beginning of
July 2019 Europe has been hit by a worrying heatwave, which beyond any
reasonable doubt is due to the global warming of the planet. In Italy, June 27
2019 has been one of the hottest day in history since temperatures are
regularly recorded. The sight of children bathing in fountains and elders
seeking refreshment in rivers is not just a contemporary one.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century
Europe saw a drop of temperatures which led some historians to speak about a
“little ice age,” bringing with it systematic social problems such as famines
and increasing the devastating effects of the European wars of the period –
especially in northern Europe. On a less easily perceivable scale, and in
southern regions, occasional heatwaves must have been especially problematic in
the face of a general cooling of the environment.

The Gozzadini archives at the Biblioteca
dell’Archiginnasio of Bologna host the correspondence of Brandoligi Gozzadini
with his father in the period between 1661-1675, covering the adolescence of
Brandoligi [all references from: Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio di
Bologna (BCAB), Gozzadini, Corrispondenza, XII, vol. 38]. Brandoligi, the son
of the powerful senatorial family of the Gozzadini, was sent by his father
Marcantonio to Florence as young page at the Medici court; the correspondence
is a sort of an account of a court education. Pages learned how to serve at the
table, to take care of noblemen, but also to ride, dance, fence, and were
educated in the arts and sciences. This rich correspondence contains notes on
fashion, food, clothing, horses, contact with Ottoman slaves, the use of
microscopes, studying Galileian philosophy, the threat of smallpox, etc. One
interesting topic is fighting heatwaves by taking advantage of the water of the
Arno river. On July 20, 1669,
the young page wrote to his father:

“The delay of my reply is due to
the fact that we go bathing every day, and we study the whole morning. But
given this burning sun (Sol Leone)
the teachers have been sent on vacation, and I will have more time to write.
This heatwave is terrible and no
one here, not even the elders, remember anything even close to this heat; if it
wasn’t for the cooling effects of bathing
in the Arno, I would not know how to fight this weather.”

Sometimes bathing was not possible though, and Brandoligi shows a pretty
accurate knowledge of the natural environment he was living in. Three years
before, he wrote:

“This heat
has really been treating us badly: it is not raining here in Florence, but it
rains up in the mountains where the Arno springs, and for this reason its
waters are murky and muddy, and we cannot go to swim, and we are so sad about
it.”

Overheating the body was a serious problem for early moderns, since it
could bring about different sorts of internal illnesses. Managing the
temperature of the skin, the external protective layer of the body, could prove
crucial. Besides bathing during heatwaves, too much dancing at parties could
prove to be dangerous, and in such occasions opening the skin and the veins
could be the right thing to do. In the spring of 1670 Brandoligi wrote:

“Last Tuesday I haven’t written to Your Most
Illustrious Lordship because I took some medicament since I am overheated; to
tell the truth, this is because I have
danced and drunk too much, and I now take refreshing syrups and I have
blood drawn from my vein.”

Surviving Heatwaves in Seventeenth-Century Florence

Between the end of June and the beginning of
July 2019 Europe has been hit by a worrying heatwave, which beyond any
reasonable doubt is due to the global warming of the planet. In Italy, June 27
2019 has been one of the hottest day in history since temperatures are
regularly recorded. The sight of children bathing in fountains and elders
seeking refreshment in rivers is not just a contemporary one.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century
Europe saw a drop of temperatures which led some historians to speak about a
“little ice age,” bringing with it systematic social problems such as famines
and increasing the devastating effects of the European wars of the period –
especially in northern Europe. On a less easily perceivable scale, and in
southern regions, occasional heatwaves must have been especially problematic in
the face of a general cooling of the environment.

The Gozzadini archives at the Biblioteca
dell’Archiginnasio of Bologna host the correspondence of Brandoligi Gozzadini
with his father in the period between 1661-1675, covering the adolescence of
Brandoligi [all references from: Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio di
Bologna (BCAB), Gozzadini, Corrispondenza, XII, vol. 38]. Brandoligi, the son
of the powerful senatorial family of the Gozzadini, was sent by his father
Marcantonio to Florence as young page at the Medici court; the correspondence
is a sort of an account of a court education. Pages learned how to serve at the
table, to take care of noblemen, but also to ride, dance, fence, and were
educated in the arts and sciences. This rich correspondence contains notes on
fashion, food, clothing, horses, contact with Ottoman slaves, the use of
microscopes, studying Galileian philosophy, the threat of smallpox, etc. One
interesting topic is fighting heatwaves by taking advantage of the water of the
Arno river. On July 20, 1669,
the young page wrote to his father:

“The delay of my reply is due to
the fact that we go bathing every day, and we study the whole morning. But
given this burning sun (Sol Leone)
the teachers have been sent on vacation, and I will have more time to write.
This heatwave is terrible and no
one here, not even the elders, remember anything even close to this heat; if it
wasn’t for the cooling effects of bathing
in the Arno, I would not know how to fight this weather.”

Sometimes bathing was not possible though, and Brandoligi shows a pretty
accurate knowledge of the natural environment he was living in. Three years
before, he wrote:

“This heat
has really been treating us badly: it is not raining here in Florence, but it
rains up in the mountains where the Arno springs, and for this reason its
waters are murky and muddy, and we cannot go to swim, and we are so sad about
it.”

Overheating the body was a serious problem for early moderns, since it
could bring about different sorts of internal illnesses. Managing the
temperature of the skin, the external protective layer of the body, could prove
crucial. Besides bathing during heatwaves, too much dancing at parties could
prove to be dangerous, and in such occasions opening the skin and the veins
could be the right thing to do. In the spring of 1670 Brandoligi wrote:

“Last Tuesday I haven’t written to Your Most
Illustrious Lordship because I took some medicament since I am overheated; to
tell the truth, this is because I have
danced and drunk too much, and I now take refreshing syrups and I have
blood drawn from my vein.”